Marketing your business online is no longer a choice, it’s a necessity. While there’s really no wiggle room on this, you do have one choice to make, however. And that choice is whether or not to hire your own in-house marketers or hire a marketing agency to do the work for you. This is one choice you do not want to take lightly. Naturally, whatever you choose will come down to price, but as you will see in this post, there are many more advantages to hiring a digital marketing agency than adding someone to your team. Let’s go!
To Pay or Not to Pay?
Depending on the level of expertise that this possible new hire comes equipped with, you will ultimately pay the price … literally. One of the more established digital marketing companies in the country, Moz, came up with an interesting statistic that to hire the full gamut of marketing professionals in-house, it would cost your business approximately $337,000 a year. This includes a Digital Marketing Manager ($73K salary for mid-career professionals), Web Designer ($47K), Social Media Manager ($49K), SEO Marketer ($60K), Content Writer ($55K), and a Graphic Designer ($53K). This is not to mention the costs of health care benefits, loss of productivity in sick days, benefits, and training costs. Now, depending on the size of your business you may not need all of this, but it gives you a good idea of the amount of money you will save by hiring an agency to do the work for you (unless you are paying your agency $337K a year, which should not be the case).
All of it Under One Umbrella
As I just mentioned, to run the full slate of digital marketing services properly, you would have to hire six full-time employees to get the job done. If you hire an outside firm, not only do you not have to add six more people to your team, but you get a lot more than just marketing expertise for one fee. Hiring an agency will give you access to search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, content writers, social media specialists, web designers, and graphic designers all under one roof. A new hire, or multiple new hires, can be risky as you never know what you’re going to get. If you have vetted your prospective marketing firm adequately, you significantly lower that risk.
Unfettered Access to Technology & Tools
While there are a host of free marketing tools out there, you get what you pay for when it comes to technology. These tools not only help you analyze the success or failure of your online marketing practices, but increase productivity, efficiency and performance while you’re at it. Hire an agency, and you will have access to software, premium-level services, and reports without paying for subscriptions and any extra fees.
Keeping the Status Quo
There are a lot of companies out there that attempt to circumvent the hiring of in-house employees or an outside marketing company by having current employees pick up the slack. This is not such a good idea because it will increase the likelihood of burnout and ultimately reduce productivity in the long term. Additionally, with all your marketing efforts divvied up amongst a wide range of employees, your holistic marketing plan will almost certainly suffer from a lack of consistency across the board.
No Training Needed
If you take the risk of hiring in-house employees, there is a good chance that they will not come fully-rounded and you might end up having to train them and pay for them to attend seminars etc. Conversely, most reputable marketing agencies absorb that cost for you, by keeping their employees fully trained and on top of the latest trends and technologies.
Scaling Up Your Marketing Efforts
With a traditional in-house marketing operation, the only way to increase your output is by hiring more employees to scale up your marketing efforts. On the other hand, professional marketing companies typically employ an army of workers to be called upon when you need to ramp up your efforts. If they don’t have the personnel, why not place the onus on them to hire more employees rather than your business having to absorb the cost.
No Learning Curve
Do you really think that your in-house marketer will have the time to read up on all of the latest digital marketing news? I highly doubt it as they are usually so immersed in the day-to-day tasks that they simply don’t have the time to stay current. Most reputable marketing agencies take education very seriously and invest time to stay abreast of the latest tools, trends, technologies and strategies to serve you better.
A Fresh Perspective
When immersed in the daily life of a company, it is very easy to get tunnel-vision working from the inside and lose sight of the big picture. In-house employees may find it difficult to come up with new ideas and have trouble taking a look at things from 30,000 feet overhead. They can’t see the forest through the trees. When it comes to successful marketing, the saying “two heads are better than one” is true. An outside marketing company will offer your business a unique and fresh perspective from the consumer and client’s point of view.
The Bottom Line
There is no right or wrong answer to this question of in-house or agency, but I feel the above evidence supports my assertion that it is better to go with an outside entity. I can see the logic of hiring an inside marketing staff as they will ultimately know your brand inside-and-out. They will promote your culture and work tirelessly towards your company’s success. This is hard to match for an outside firm, so why not have a point person (current employee) working internally who can collaborate with the marketing agency to help them know your demographics, brand voice, key messages, and so on? The agency will then be able to contribute to your overall success with all of the aforementioned benefits. They will provide the manpower without the added costs.
If you are interested in seeing how our digital marketing agency can help your company increase leads and revenue through online marketing, get in touch with us for a free consultation.